Poignant Facebook Messages Bowie Wife

NEW YORK - David Bowie's supermodel wife who was married to the legendary musician for 23 years, posted a series of poignant Facebook messages in the days leading up to his death.

"The struggle is real, but so is God," Iman wrote on her public Twitter and Facebook accounts Sunday, the day that her husband died surrounded by his family after a private 18 month battle with cancer as publish by AFP.

In the hours after news broke Monday of his death, the post collected more than 2,000 messages of condolence to the 60 year old Somali-American model and the couple's teenage daughter, Alexandria.

Iman has not commented publicly since her husband's death was announced.

"Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory," she wrote Saturday.

Iman reposted a series of old photographs of Bowie and a string of loving messages to mark his 69th birthday on Friday.

"I will love you til i die, i will see you in the sky #tonight happy birthday mr. bowie," read one next to a photograph of her husband with Tina Turner.

"Happy Birthday to the man who fell to earth. Forever Bowie," read another.

"Life isn't about avoiding the bruises. It's about collecting the scars to prove we showed up for it," she wrote to her 108,000 Twitter followers Friday.

The couple, who enjoyed one of the most enduring marriages in the celebrity world, wed in 1992 and divided their time between London and New York. Their daughter was born in 2000.